SULFUR DETERMINATION IN PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
GENERAL
Sulfur is present in one chemical form or other in many petroleum products. It occurs in natural form starting with crude oils, but is also added in chemical form in several products to modify performance. In some cases the presence of sulfur is beneficial to the product, and in other cases it is detrimental to the processing or use of the product. Traces of sulfur can act as catalytic poisons during processing. Particularly of concern are the sulfur oxide emissions during combustion of sulfur containing products. A number of government regulations mandate gradual elimination of sulfur from gasoline type products to curb pollution.
There are over a dozen test methods for the determination of sulfur employing a variety of techniques and applicable from trace levels to major amounts of concentration. These are described in brief. Additionally, other multielement methods such as ICP-AES (Test Methods D4951 and D5185) and XRF (Test Methods D4927 and D6443) standards also determine sulfur.
